University Counseling Service

(UCS) at the University of Iowa:

1946-1996

This page was completed by
the current director
in acknowledgment of the 50th Anniversary of the UCS,celebrated in July, 1996

University Counseling Service (UCS) at TheUniversity of Iowa: 1946-1996

Historically,
counseling services in higher education could be traced to the character
development emphasis within the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century private
religious college.Other historians
would point to the testing and guidance activities of World War I, the student
personnel work at the University of Minnesota in the 1920s and 1930s, the
disciplinary function of collegiate deans in the early twentieth century, or to
the modern separation between faculty interests and student goals, as
appropriate historical contexts.The
origin of modern-day counseling services was the widening opportunity for
higher education that occurred after World War II.Legislation (Serviceman's Readjustment
Act--GI Bill) entitled all veterans to financial support for a college
education.The majority of these
veterans entered public rather than private universities, requiring additional
service at these universities (e.g., testing, career and educational
guidance).In response, the Veterans
Administration established guidance centers on or near a college campus.At Iowa, such a service was
administered through the founding of the Student Counseling Office in
1946.Dewey Stuit,1 (a list of directors is attached)
the first director and former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, was one of the early
pioneers of counseling psychology.The
Student Counseling Office was housed in the Department of Psychology, although
an earlier informal counseling program was conducted with the Registrar's
entrance testing program.

Location
and staffing pattern represented another major contributor to the growth of the
UCS.As noted, the Student Counseling
Office was housed in the Department of Psychology in East Hall, from 1946 until
the early seventies.As envisioned, the
Counseling Office at Iowa was to follow the Minnesota model of applying science
to vocational counseling activities including the use of psychometric
tests.This psychometric emphasis was
certainly reflected in the founding pioneer of the Counseling Office--Dewey Stuit.He obtained
his doctoral degree at the University of Illinois in Educational Psychology
with emphasis on tests and measurement.During his tenure at CarletonCollege, he had contacts with Jack Darley and E. G. Williamson about the Minnesota model.In coming to Iowa, he was director of the
entrance testing program as well as a faculty member in the Department of
Psychology.During World War II, he was
in the Navy and assigned to the Personnel Office concerned with testing and
research.Clay Gerken1
who was involved with the Counseling Office
from 1943-57, had earlier been Director of Personnel at the University of
Minnesota and a contributor to the Minnesota
Occupation Rating Scale, and later in charge of the VA counseling office at
Iowa.Thus, research, psychometrics, and
vocational counseling served as major foundations although one could point to
some interests in personal counseling (e.g., Shoben’s1 work in 1949
about a learning approach to psychotherapy).Most of the early work was vocational counseling with referral of
serious personal issues to the IowaPsychopathicHospital.Within the Department of Psychology, there
had been a tradition of clinics including the speech clinic.The research and training clinic model in
which faculty members serve primarily as researchers and supervisors of
graduate students who see most of the clients was adopted by the Counseling
Office.

In
the mid- to late 1950s, research and training were strengthened and outreach
outside the Department of Psychology was introduced by Len Goodstein.1He improved services.In fact, the Student Counseling Office was
changed to its current name--University Counseling Service in the
mid-1950s.He brought people from other
disciplines such as Donald Hoyt from Education, John Muthard
from Rehabilitation, and others from the Child Welfare Station.John Crites1 continued the
research and training traditions including a two-hour battery of tests for each
client.He also completed his text on Vocational Psychology at Iowa.The outreach activities continued especially
during the 1960s with group meetings in residence halls about interracial
dating and efforts to support student protesters.If the mid-forties and fifties were the first
stage, followed by consolidation and transition in the 1960s, the second stage
was the 1970s.Many changes occurred
including another location change.The
movement from the Psychology Department and East Hall to the Student Services
Division of the University and the Student Union was not only a physical move,
but a reconceptualization of the counseling
service.The earlier priorities of
research, training, and service were reversed--from a research and training
clinic concerned with tests and vocational counseling to a student development
center concerned with a variety of services to students.Ursula Delworth’s1
appointment and tenure as director in the mid-1970s reflects these changes.Coming from community service and student
development background at ColoradoStateUniversityCounselingCenter, she stressed the
development of student service programs.As a consequence of these changes, the academic counseling psychology
program moved from Psychology to Education.

In
our more recent past, the internship was accredited under Delworth’s1
guidance and the academic program in counseling psychology was re-accredited
after the loss of accreditation that occurred in the move in the early
1970s.During the late 1980s and 1990s,
another physical move took place--the move from the Student Union to Westlawn,
a large multipurpose building on the west side of campus.Earlier, the Westlawn space was a nurses’
dormitory and then a residence hall for the Foreign Language House.Although there were no major conceptual
changes like before, the move did come to highlight a more professional and
clinical setting dealing with students suffering from more serious
psychological problems.Although there
has been an increase in clients with serious problems seeking service at the
UCS, these problems are not unrelated to their academic progress.The UCS has always provided psychological
services that are directly related to the academic mission.For example, in the early years the
Counseling Office was always concerned with academic problems--reading clinic,
Dewey Stuit’s1 research in how to study.Currently, we continue this long tradition of
dealing with academic problems by providing workshops on study skills, dissertation
support group, and learning disability assessment.The tragedy of multiple homicides on campus
on November 1, 1991, and the aftermath
including the response of the UCS for psychological intervention for the
community, solidified the reputation of the UCS as a valuable university
resource. The diversity theme has been a major theme for several years, beginning with
the turbulence in the 1960s, through Delworth’s1 hiring of a diverse
staff, to the present day infusion of diversity throughout all UCS functions.

In coming to a close, the UCS will continue to
evolve.In the beginning, were the
pioneers who established a research- and training-based clinic focused on
vocational and educational counseling and staffed by a few research-oriented
psychologists who supervised a number of graduate students who counseled many
of the student clients.The next stage
of development represented consolidation of the past and transition from a
research clinic to a student service office associated with professionals influenced
by student development.The current
stage has built on the past and extended the service, training, and research
functions to meet the challenges of diversity and mental health policy issues
arising from the health and safety needs of Iowa students.In looking back at major contributions, Len
Goodstein’s1 work in predicting academic success, John Crites’1
research in the development of vocational interests, Ursula Delworth’s1
contributions to a developmental clinical supervision model, and Gerald Stone’s1
writings on mental health policy issues in higher education need to be
mentioned.The Golden Anniversary of the
UCS was just celebrated.During the
celebration, an engagement with “rememberance of
things past” with the renewal of connections to former and present colleagues occurred.Dewey Stuit was
there.
So was Len Goodstein, and
Ursula Delworth.It is now time to look
ahead to the next 50 years....